Re: Bandaging horses legs

[LABUP@aol.com]

Hey All:

I agree with Bob Morris on this one.  First of all it makes good common sense.
Secondly of all, I have been a competative athlete in several areas in my
lifetime.  I have also taught body building and aerobic excercise classes for
"people" and know the following is true.   

Bob's description of how muscles build is simplistic but absolutely correct.
In all my years I have never, never advised someone or myself, wrapped muscles
due to soreness from pushing conditioning to a greater level.  I generally do
not use ibuprofen or muscle linaments either.  This is not to say that pain
relievers and linaments to ease soreness should not be used.  Personally, I
just use easy warm up movement and stretching to ease muscle soreness.

If you are talking about an actual injury, that is a totally different matter.
Ice and wrapping may be very useful depending on what is going on.  Just
remember if you do wrap the legs due to injury, check the wraps frequently
because if swelling continues, the wrap will be be more harmful than helpful
if it becomes too tight.

Again, I want to stress, we are talking about two different things.  Normal
muscle soreness from a greater level of exertion and actual injury.  Please
keep the two seperate.

Lori Bielec
Portland, OR